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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25617064">Like Oil and Blood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout'>Masu_Trout</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vampyr (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Clothed Sex, Facial Shaving, First Time, Frottage, Hair, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Straight Razors, Trust Issues, Wall Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:28:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25617064</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An injured Geoffrey McCullum finds himself relying on the hospitality of a leech.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>300</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Like Oil and Blood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts">thedevilchicken</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Geoffrey has a feeling he might be going mad. Certainly he's gone more than a bit stir-crazy, cooped up in this hospital with his dominant hand injured and a leech never more than a few rooms away. </p><p>Reid's presence is a constant here at Pembroke. He tends to the patients in the dead of night, pores over files with his curtains tightly closed each morning, and bandages wounds and attends to surgeries without so much as a moment's slip—at least, not one that Geoffrey's been able to catch.</p><p><i>Yet</i>.</p><p>But a leech's unceasing presence at Geoffrey's back is a strain, no matter how unfortunately necessary it might be. He was only just beginning to force himself to be—reluctantly, unhappily—accepting of Reid's presence at his side on hunts or during investigations where a vampire's nose for blood might be useful. And now Reid has been under the same roof as him for five days straight: his footsteps behind him when Geoffrey expects him least, his fearlessness in interacting with the civilians here as if he isn't thinking of the blood pulsing through their veins whenever one comes by to ask <i>the kind doctor</i> for his help.</p><p>The tension's been wearing Geoffrey down. Burning out his sense for just what kind of danger he's in. Making him think strange, downright suicidal things.</p><p>Geoffrey shifts uncomfortably where he leans against one of Reid's cabinets, listening to Reid hum tunelessly to himself as he rummages through an over-stuffed drawer. </p><p>"Find what you're looking for, <i>doctor</i>?" he asks, without too much bite in his words.</p><p>Reid only snorts. "We can't all live austerely as you, McCullum. Terribly sorry to disappoint."</p><p>"Yes, what would Pembroke's finest be without"—he eyes a spot on the cabinet-top nearest him, runs his uninjured hand over the clutter there—"two broken watches and a box of cigarettes? You toss those and we might as well give London up for dead."</p><p>"Ah!" Reid looks at the pile and—with a smile Geoffrey <i>knows</i> is just to rile him up—plucks the cigarette box off of the pile before turning back to his drawer. "That is one of the things I'd been looking for. Thank you, McCullum." A few moments later, he starts up humming again.</p><p>Geoffrey doesn't say anything to that. Silence is better than letting the leech hear when he's gotten under his skin.</p><p>He's taken to joining the doctor in his room in the evenings—to make sure he doesn't sneak off to one of the patient's rooms, is what he told Reid, though from the raised eyebrow he'd gotten in return he knows Reid bought that excuse exactly as much as Geoffrey expected him to. In his condition, he has about as much chance of stopping the leech from doing <i>anything</i> as a mouse does chasing off a cat. </p><p>In truth, it's... relaxing, almost, in a perverse sort of way, to spend time alone with Reid. Here, there's no one to judge his manners if he bristles at Reid's approach, or keeps his back stuck to the wall, or mutters something less-than-complimentary about catching Reid paying more attention to a patient's pulse than their complaints.</p><p>(Diagnosis, Reid calls it. <i>Hah</i>. He might be able to sniff out disease, but Geoffrey knows damn well that's not all he's smelling.)</p><p>Here, it's just the two of them. And Reid knows he's a leech, and he knows Geoffrey doesn't <i>get along</i> with leeches, to say the least—and that, ironically, makes it easier to get along with Reid. To relax in his presence, even, and notice things about him beyond the sharpness of his teeth and the chalky bloodlessness of his skin and the faint red tinge that shines in his pale eyes from exactly the wrong angles.</p><p>Some of the things he's noticed are useful: the cadence of Reid's footsteps on tile, the way he favors one leg just slightly, his habit of losing focus on the world around him when he's working at his desk. Others... </p><p>Well. Perhaps some of the things he's caught himself studying in the moments he knows Reid isn't paying attention will prove helpful to Priwen's cause someday. A leech's body is its greatest weapon, after all, and Reid is an exceedingly powerful leech. But he can admit, if only to himself, that knowing <i>exactly </i>what the curve of Reid's neck looks like when he's bowed over a book might not be the most immediately-relevant piece of information he's ever committed to memory.</p><p>Tonight, what's caught his attention is a gleam in the drawer that Reid is rummaging around through. A straight razor, blade tucked into handle, tossed there among the rest of the knick-knacks Reid's filled his space with: glass vials and screws and bits of scrap metal, bottles half-full of liquor he can't possibly drink now, shiny bits of costume jewelry.</p><p>Reid's own beard is neatly shaped, dignified-looking even when matted with some unlucky leech's blood. Does he keep it that way? Or is that, like cold and disease and the passage of time, a worry he's been able to set aside thanks to his <i>condition</i>? Geoffrey's never stopped to wonder whether a vampire's hair keeps growing after death.</p><p>His own stubble's gotten ridiculous over the course of the past week, from a hint of growth to the sort of ragged half-beard he'd thought he'd left behind in his teenage years. He looks matted and mangy, his chin itches, and until his hand heals there's not a damn thing he can do about it.</p><p>Except—</p><p>Geoffrey turns the stray idea over in his mind for a minute, just to marvel at the sheer absurdity of it. Let a leech settle in right next to his neck! Hell, <i>ask</i> one to get that close to him! Next he'll be popping down to the kitchens to borrow a plate, just so he can arrange himself a little more artfully for the good doctor's dinner.</p><p>His scruff is bothering him, though. Perhaps once the sun rises he can head to the main floor and ask one of the hospital's doctors—a properly human one—to take care of it for him. </p><p>He'll have to be careful, of course, if he wants to avoid having to explain any of the dozens of scars marring his neck to whoever lends him a hand. And unless he wants the story of <i>why that McCullum fellow looks like he was mauled by a pack of vicious dogs under that scarf of his</i>—embellished impressively, no doubt, and liable to change every time it gets told—spread around to half the hospital by noon and three quarters of the place by sunset, he'll have to make sure he picks someone who won't gossip. </p><p>And won't that be an easy task; Geoffrey's no idea whether this hospital was staffed with gossips to begin with, or whether everyone has turned to the hobby during the pandemic, but Geoffrey's overheard more stories than he can keep straight just from standing around in Pembroke's halls looking inconspicuous. If he rules all the unsuitable candidates out, that leaves...</p><p>Geoffrey grits his teeth. No. <i>Absolutely not</i>.</p><p>He knows exactly who he can go to who'll ask no questions and spread no rumors: the man who already knows the answer, and who's already hiding the truth from everyone else. </p><p>Which brings him back to his original problem. The man in question isn't a <i>man</i> at all.</p><p>"Have I done something to offend you?" Reid asks dryly, startling Geoffrey out of his thoughts. "More than the baseline, I mean."</p><p>"What kind of question's that?" Geoffrey snaps back.</p><p>Reid's still standing with his back to Geoffrey. He doesn't even glance over at him as he speaks. The disregard for Geoffrey's strength would be insulting if his injury hadn't left the gap between their abilities disgustingly wide. Right now, he <i>is</i> helpless. If Reid wanted to sink his teeth into Geoffrey's neck he could've done it a hundred different times in a hundred different ways this past week. And yet Geoffrey's still standing, and still not sporting any new teeth marks. </p><p>So. Nothing he says here, no matter <i>how</i> imbecilic, is going to make his position worse.</p><p>Now Reid does turn towards him. He looks as unbothered as ever, but Geoffrey can see his nostrils flare. </p><p>Tasting the air. Taking in Geoffrey's scent. Disgusting.</p><p>"Well," he says, "my peripheral vision isn't a complete blank, you know. I worry you might burn a hole in my coat from how hard you're staring."</p><p>Peripheral vision, ha. More like some sort of leech sense—he's seen just how much Reid has been looking around while rummaging  through that drawer, and it hasn't been enough to get a good feeling for the expression of a man right behind him. </p><p>But Geoffrey doesn't bother to push him on that. Instead, he says, "I was just wondering whether you leeches need to shave."</p><p>"Shave?" Reid brushes a hand over his beard, almost reflexively. "I do, yes." He tilts his head. "Were you hoping to punish me with a bad haircut?"</p><p>"That'd be one way to recognize your kind." </p><p>Catch and release: set them free, then hunt for the half-bald ones, maybe find a few of their friends in the process. Shame it wouldn't work, really. The idea has its appeal.</p><p>Reid hums an assent. He almost looks like he might be smiling, and that's...</p><p>Geoffrey shouldn't be joking around with a leech about killing his kind. It makes it <i>seem</i> like a joke, like he's telling himself he won't kill Reid, and that's—dangerous. It can't be true. The moment he starts making exceptions, starts thinking of even one of them as something beyond prey, he's lost.</p><p>(He might be lost already. The Geoffrey McCullum of a year ago would never sleep under the same roof as a vampire, would never entertain the kind of thoughts he entertains about Reid for even a second. He's let himself travel much too far down a much too dangerous path.)</p><p>"Nothing like that, though." He forges ahead. "I was only going to ask if you'd be willing to give me a cut too."</p><p>Reid starts. Geoffrey looks towards the far wall, pointedly ignoring the surprise on the leech's face.</p><p>"Well?" Geoffrey asks.</p><p>"I..." Reid coughs. "Wouldn't you rather ask"—his mouth moves for a moment, like he's trying to come up with someone in particular to throw Geoffrey towards, and then he finally settles on—"anyone else?"</p><p>"What, don't think you can control yourself?"</p><p>Reid's mouth flattens into a line. "I didn't say <i>that</i>."</p><p>He moves, then, sudden enough to make Geoffrey flinch, striding towards him until they're barely a hand's-breadth away. One of his hands comes up to brush the backs of his cold fingers against Geoffrey's jaw. </p><p>Geoffrey tenses. He couldn't get a stake in Reid right now if he tried, but that doesn't mean his hands aren't aching with the urge.</p><p>"I was only wondering," Reid continues, his voice low, "whether you'd take issue."</p><p>Neither of them moves. Geoffrey stares up at Reid—jaw clenched, every deep-buried animal instinct he has screaming at him to run—and says, "Don't patronize me, beast."</p><p>Reid makes a considering little noise and drops his hand.</p><p>"All right," he says, just as intently. "All right." And then, his tone jumping in a heartbeat back to <i>kindly Dr. Reid</i>, he adds, "Though I'll warn you not to get used to this. I wouldn't want all my patients to think we offer this as part of the package."</p><p>"Whatever happened to good service?"</p><p>"Well, it's not the seventeenth century anymore, you know."</p><p>"You probably ought to tell some of your colleagues that," Geoffrey scoffs.</p><p>"I don't disagree." From the way Reid's mouth quirks upward—as much a flash of his teeth as it is a grin—they both know they're not talking about Reid's medical colleagues.</p><p>He ignores the razor in his drawer and instead moves towards a cupboard on the wall, pulling out a much more expensive-looking kit from within. It's a supple leather case, worn and faded from deep brown to pale beige where hands have touched it most, but no less elaborate for the signs of age. Inside is a blade handled in some fine wood, tucked neatly alongside an equally fancy brush and mirror and ceramic bowl. The leather is stained in places, dark splotchy patches, and Geoffrey can't help but wonder if Reid took this with him to war; he can almost picture it in his head, the man crouching in the corner of some medical tent with the mirror in one hand and the blade in the other.</p><p>(He'd been human back then, but that doesn't stop Geoffrey's imagination from adding suspicious puncture wounds to the necks of Reid's fellows. Reid and bloodlust are forever intertwined in his mind. For all he hardly behaves like a leech, the man somehow manages to be just about the most <i>vampiric</i> vampire Geoffrey's ever met.)</p><p>Reid wets the brush at the sink, filling the bristles thoroughly with water before squeezing most of it out with one quick twist of his hand. Next is the tin of soap: he pops the metal lid off absentmindedly, letting it clatter against the counter, and then dips the brush inside. </p><p>Geoffrey watches him build soap onto the brush, trying not to think of anything in particular and failing. It's not like the routine's anything unusual—it's something he himself does most every morning himself, it could hardly <i>get</i> more usual—but it's exactly that familiarity that makes it dangerous. </p><p>Reid tearing through packs of skals with claws made from shadow is a monster. Reid snatching a rat from the ground and bringing its live, squealing body to his teeth is a monster. Reid with his eyes bloodshot and his mouth stained red from some leech's blood is a monster.</p><p>Reid in his faded doctor's coat, standing at the sink and working brush against soap with a faint expression of concentration on his face, is—</p><p>Dangerous. </p><p>"All right," Reid says after a few seconds more, pausing to examine the bristles of the brush. "That should be enough. Here, sit." </p><p>He gestures to a trunk nearby, oversized and bulky and large enough to substitute for a chair. </p><p>Geoffrey hesitates a moment—he can't say he likes the idea of letting Reid loom over him—but if he backs out now then there won't have been a point to any of this. He leaves the cabinets to settle on the trunk's heavy leather-bound lid instead, listens to it creak under his weight as he tilts his head back for Reid. </p><p>Reid moves to stand before Geoffrey: too quickly, too quietly, every bit the leech he pretends not to be outside of this room. Geoffrey's seen, these past few nights, how he acts around the rest of the humans here; he'd never move like this in a patient's room. But with Geoffrey the mask can drop, and when Reid lets it drop it drops in spectacular fashion.</p><p>He doesn't need to breathe, of course; that's nothing special for a vampire. Neither is the chill of his hands when he presses two fingers against Geoffrey's jaw to tilt his chin up, nor the way his gaze jumps hungrily to Geoffrey's jaw in the instant before he can tear it away. But his movements, as he presses the brush to Geoffrey's stubbled chin and starts working the bristles in small circles across his cheek, are precise beyond even a normal leech's.</p><p>Reid-the-man, the doctor who exists outside this room, yawns occasionally as he walks the halls. He puts his hands in his pockets or takes them out again, depending on how deeply the chill has seeped in. He blinks sometimes, or shifts his weight, coughs and clears his throat, rubs at the dark circles under his eyes when in the middle of a long sleepless shift.</p><p>Here, in front of him, Reid can shed all those unnecessary affectations. The only parts of him that move are the parts of him that need to move: his hand and wrist, working up a lather across Geoffrey's jaw; his eyes, darting from Geoffrey's face to jaw to neck and back again; his fingers, occasionally brushing Geoffrey's skin to tilt his head into a better position.</p><p>And it isn't as if Geoffrey ever thought vampires actually yawned. He didn't join the Guard yesterday. But he'd always assumed that Reid did those things automatically; that he acted like a man because some deep-buried instinctive part of him still thought itself a man. These past few nights spent in Reid's own lair, witnessing the vast gulf between how Reid acts among others and how Reid acts with him, have thoroughly disabused him of the notion. It's disconcerting to know those little tics are part of some great charade Reid's putting on, an act with an audience of hundreds. And it's just as disconcerting to realize he's likely the only mortal man who's ever been given the chance to see beyond it.</p><p>(It should be more than disconcerting. It should be horrifying. It should bridge the gap between Reid-the-doctor and Reid-the-killer, unmask man for monster the way Geoffrey desperately wished to the night they first met here in Pembroke's halls. But the Reid who Geoffrey sees in private, the <i>real</i> Reid, still hums to himself when he rummages through his piles of hoarded junk. He asks Geoffrey questions he already knows the answer to with no malice at all in his voice. And he does things like this, things no leech should ever dream of doing: he works a shaving brush across the leader of the Guard of Priwen's skin with a deference that ill-fits a vampire, hands gentle and strong, ignoring the blood beating hot and strong through Geoffrey's bared neck.)</p><p>Reid moves the brush across Geoffrey's face; by now he's coated one cheek, his jaw, and most of the other in thick lather. He makes his way up the rest of Geoffrey's cheek with those same measured movements, then steps back a moment to look at his handiwork. </p><p>"That should do," he says. There's a question hanging in his words, left unsaid: <i>are you going to back out?</i> </p><p>Many men have let Reid take a blade to their bodies. But none, Geoffrey expects, have ever done it while knowing exactly what Reid is.</p><p>There's a beautiful sort of simplicity to being a part of Priwen. Their enemies are beasts wearing the ill-fitting and rotten skins of men. Killing them is a difficult task, grueling and thankless—but it isn't <i>complex</i>.</p><p>But Reid has made it complex, and Geoffrey hates him for it, and that hatred makes him want Reid more.</p><p>"Hurry up already," Geoffrey says, tilting his head back to answer Reid's question with a challenge of his own. "Are you prepping for a shave or for surgery?"</p><p>Reid scoffs. "I've had patients who complained about surgery less than you've complained about this, you know."</p><p>There's teasing lilt to his voice. Geoffrey can't help but respond to it. He grins, feeling the foam shift on his face, and says, "No great surprise, considering. I'm guessing you've fussed over patients prepping for surgery less than you're fussing now. I'm starting to wonder if your hands are even up for the task—or maybe you've developed a tremor?"</p><p>That gets him an unimpressed look, and a blade held deliberately to the dim light to show off the way it gleams.</p><p>"Don't squirm around too much. Wouldn't want to make a mistake."</p><p><i>Sure you wouldn't</i>, Geoffrey thinks, imagining every leech feeding frenzy he's ever seen, but before he can say as much the blade is at his cheek.</p><p>Geoffrey swallows reflexively, pulls in a deep breath, and holds himself very, <i>very</i> still as Reid makes his way down towards Geoffrey's jawline. Each stroke is small and precise and careful, and he can feel every single time Reid risks pressing his fingers to Geoffrey's face to pull the skin tight or wipe a speck of extra foam away. Every cold, waxy touch sends a shiver down Geoffrey's spine, but—it's not bad, exactly. Not entirely, at least.</p><p>The blade makes a path across Geoffrey's skin, Reid pausing every so often to wipe the edge clean. When he reaches Geoffrey's jaw, he hesitates a moment—Geoffrey hesitating with him, no less aware of the next step and no more eager than him to make the next move—and then grips Geoffrey's chin and tilts his head back to expose his neck.</p><p>Geoffrey doesn't flinch. Doesn't hold his breath. Either of those would be a sign of cowardice. But in the moment between one second and the next his tension ratchets up until he feels like he's swimming in it, drowning in it. His pulse is pounding like a rabbit's; he knows the leech standing over him can hear it—can probably fucking <i>see</i> it thrumming through his veins—and that unconscious bodily response seems a worse kind of cowardice than any visible reaction would have been. At least then he would have been moving. At least then he would have been <i>doing</i> something.</p><p>This feels almost comedic: the leader of the Guard of Priwen, sitting still and unguarded in front of a vampire, not because he's unafraid but because his every muscle is locked in place. As helpless as a wet-behind-the-ears recruit on his first night out. As helpless as a boy pressed against the wall of his family's home with a monster's teeth digging into his neck and a voice that could almost be his father's echoing around him.</p><p>He shouldn't have agreed to this. </p><p>He shouldn't have asked for this. </p><p>He shouldn't—</p><p>A breath against the shell of his ear, then, cold as the night air, and with it a voice: "Geoffrey. I will not harm you. <i>You have my word</i>."</p><p>The last sentence comes with heavy with vampiric <i>mesmer</i>, commanding enough to slip into Geoffrey's ears and sink through his skull and rattle around somewhere deeper—but it's not the mesmer that snaps him out of it. It's the leech's voice, because it's <i>Reid's</i> voice—gruff and gravelly, always sounding halfway to apologetic even at his most exasperated, with the kind of accent that always has Geoffrey ready to throw a punch and a familiarity that always soothes him despite it. Reid's voice, not... anyone else's.</p><p>Geoffrey pulls in a breath and lets the tension leave his body.</p><p>"If you <i>ever</i> try to pull that leech-voice shite on me again," he growls, glaring up at Reid, letting the threat peter out into implication.</p><p>Reid peers down at him. "Yes, yes. You'll tie me to the stake or set me on fire or something equally barbaric." His words are casual, but he looks more worried than Geoffrey would like. After a moment's pause, he adds, hesitantly, "But—is there anything I can get you?"</p><p>"Get me?"</p><p>"I have cures for insomnia handy, or headache, or"—he says the next with a casualness so perfect Geoffrey knows it's forced—"I could stop for now, if you're feeling irritated. It's possible the posture isn't good for your healing wounds."</p><p>Wounded hands causing neck aches. <i>Right</i>. Geoffrey's never heard of that particular ailment before. Probably because he's not a big-deal doctor like Reid.</p><p>(Christ. A worried leech. It's embarrassing to witness, and even more embarrassing because he's fine, really. A moment's confusion, nothing more—for all his instincts might have betrayed him, he knows damn well the difference between this leech and the ghosts from his past. In the aftermath, it all seems foolish. Even his earlier, low-level tension has all but fled entirely. There's only so threatened he can feel by Doctor Reid on any given day, it seems, and he's just about run out of adrenaline to spare.)</p><p>"Look. Just... keep going, all right? I'm fine. My face is fine, my neck is fine. I'm not about to crumble and wither away."</p><p>The concern written across Reid's face is aggravating. Geoffrey has seen it from him before, directed his way, after fights where Geoffrey comes off the worse or on nights he stumbles in Pembroke's general direction nursing a wound he <i>might</i> just be hoping one of the hospital's doctors in particular will sense and deign to treat. It's not an uncommon look for Reid these days, and every time Geoffrey sees it he could almost make himself believe—</p><p><i>What?</i> he thinks to himself angrily, daring himself for once to pin down the frantic thoughts he's been letting flit back and forth in his brain like a flock of pigeons looking for seed. That Reid <i>cares</i> for him as something more than a food source, a nuisance, an unfortunate but useful ally? That Reid might be the same sort of man Geoffrey is, the sort who eschews marriage and children and everything a righteous man ought to want in favor of cold, impersonal nights with strangers whenever he can spare a night from the hunt? That two men—one of them a monster, one of them so steeped in a world of monsters that he's little better—could fall into bed together and make anything of it other than regret?</p><p>That he could lean up now, close the distance between them to press his mouth to Reid's cold corpse's lips, and not lose every goddamn thing he has in his life in the process?</p><p>Fuck. He is a fool. Nothing new about that, really. Geoffrey's always been wanting things—people, relationships—he knows he can't have. (That he knows it's dangerous to even dream of having.) This is just the latest, and worst, in a line of terrible ideas as long as a winter night.</p><p>Reid's looking at him still. There's concern and something else written on his face. Geoffrey stares him down until he has no choice but to blink, and then tears his gaze away with a scoffing noise. </p><p>"What, leech, didn't you hear me? Don't tell me you've gone deaf."</p><p>"I don't think I could block out your voice if I tried, McCullum." Reid stares at him a moment longer, and then he sighs. It sounds perfectly human. "All right," he says. "All right. Just... tell me this time if you want me to stop. <i>Before</i> it causes an issue."</p><p>"We weren't having any issues until you stopped," Geoffrey says peevishly, knowing it's a lie and knowing Reid knows it's a lie and not especially caring about either, but he leans his head back again and lets Reid continue.</p><p>It's a better outcome than the alternative, anyway. Better than Reid insisting on stopping, insisting on coddling him—or, worse by far to imagine, Reid arching one of those perfectly-sculpted eyebrows of his and saying, coldly, <i>Tell me, McCullum, what</i> exactly<i> where you thinking about just now</i>?</p><p>Reid's blade scrapes carefully over Geoffrey's jawbone and down across his neck, each small touch sending a shiver down Geoffrey's spine. There's something soothing about the rhythm of it, the steadiness of Reid's hand and the cleanness of the shave. This time, Geoffrey lets himself relax, lets Reid work his way up and down Geoffrey's exposed skin without flinching away.</p><p>He's going to have forget about this, after. Drive the memory of Reid's quiet, careful attention from his mind. He's not sure he's going to be able to. </p><p>It's a long time before Reid's blade pauses in its work. Geoffrey hadn't realized he let his eyes drift shut; he opens them to see Reid offering him a damp, slightly off-white cloth. It's the kind of fabric that's not quite ready to be made into bandages yet, but has definitely seen better days.</p><p>"Done?" Geoffrey asks, taking it from Reid and wiping his face clean of leftover shaving lather and hair clippings. It's a good cut. Feels clean. Precise.</p><p>"You look a little more like yourself now," Reid says, "for better or worse."</p><p>There's a crooked half-smile on his face, his leech-teeth visible even without the fangs fully extended. Geoffrey finds it hard not to stare at them sometimes—especially now, with the way the tip of one curves against his lower lip.</p><p>What would that feel like? If he pressed his mouth to Redi's corpselike lips, would they dig in against his skin? </p><p>He can't even pretend it's an idle question. He never should've let this happen in the first place. Never should've asked Reid for this, never should've stopped by Pembroke at all—</p><p>"McCullum," Reid says, gaze fixed firmly on him. Geoffrey has no idea what exactly he's sensing right now, or how—but he can hazard a guess.</p><p>Geoffrey flushes hot as he abruptly stands, tears his eyes away from Reid's face to stare at the far wall. Shame burns hot in his chest, leaves his heart pounding and his body tense. In his mind, he's daring Reid to laugh, to mock, to say anything at all that'll give Geoffrey the excuse he so desperately wants to throw the first punch.</p><p>He isn't looking at Reid anymore, so it comes as a surprise when a pair of cold lips press against his.</p><p>Reid's mouth is exactly as cold and as sharp as Geoffrey had imagined it. The first touch of their bodies isn't so much a kiss as a pile of broken glass being shoved directly at his mouth. He winces back, half-sure he's about to be eaten, overbalances, grabs the lapels of Reid's coat, making Reid flinch back in turn—</p><p>They both freeze. They're a hand's-breadth apart, staring at each other. Some part of Geoffrey almost wants to believe that was an attempt at an attack; Reid trying to kill and devour him would be much simpler than this. </p><p>"McCullum," Reid says, sounding embarrassed, "I..." </p><p>He twists, trying to pull his coat from Geoffrey's grip. Trying to flee, Geoffrey expects. He doesn't let go. And Reid could disappear into shadows, or rip himself free of his coat, or crush Geoffrey's hands entirely where he stands—but he does none of those things. He just stands there, nervous and quiet, waiting for Geoffrey's next words.</p><p>Reid's eyes look redder up close, he notices vaguely. Perhaps that should be the thing that snaps him back to sanity, that makes him remember what the creature he's holding on to really is. It doesn't work.</p><p>"Geoffrey," Reid tries again. His voice is quieter now. Pleading. That might be the first time Geoffrey's ever heard his given  name out of Reid's mouth. </p><p>"Jonathan," Geoffrey says, matching him one for one. "Where exactly are you trying to go?"</p><p>Reid winces. His tongue flicks out over his teeth in a nervous gesture. Reid watches Geoffrey watch its movement, and hurriedly pulls it back into his mouth. </p><p>"I apologize," he says, sounding entirely too sincere. "I shouldn't have... I miscalculated the situation. I wronged you. I'm sorry."</p><p>He sounds so fucking <i>downtrodden</i>. Geoffrey can't stand it. A leech isn't supposed to act so pitiful as this—and Reid in particular isn't allowed to act this nervous. Geoffrey's become far too used to Reid's smug optimism, present in the face of every crisis, no doubt growing stronger the more he knows it'll annoy Geoffrey: <i>Lend me the blood of King Arthur, I promise you I'll use it well. Oh, this skal pack will be no problem for us, just make sure you have my back. Don't worry, let me heal you, you can trust a leech.</i> For all he's always wanted to see Reid taken down a peg or two, he can't say he likes this.</p><p>"Well, you did miscalculate." Geoffrey scoffs. "What sort of aim was that supposed to be? Are you a leech or are you a drunkard?"</p><p>And before Reid has the chance to do more than stare at him, he reels him back in closer and kisses him again.</p><p>This time it's a little easier. Geoffrey digs his hands tighter into Reid's coat as he kisses him, feels cold skin and cold tongue and sharp, needle-edged teeth, shivers in something he can't quite make himself believe is disgust. Reid's full beard prickles against Geoffrey's fresh-shaven skin wherever they brush against each other; it's coarse but carefully groomed. This close he can smell the oil Reid must put into it, fancy bastard that he is. Geoffrey likes the texture of it, though,  and he likes even more Reid's little intake of breath of breath when Geoffrey rubs against it.</p><p>Geoffrey's always known how good it feels to take a leech by surprise. He's got the kills to show it. And this might be just about as far opposite a situation to staking an Ekon in a back alley as Geoffrey's ever known, but it turns out the sense of satisfaction's just the same.</p><p>Reid makes a noise when Geoffrey deepens the kiss and presses his tongue into Reid's eerily-cold mouth, a sharp bestial growl, and then <i>finally</i> he seems to catch on that this is happening, that Geoffrey wants this, and with a rush of strength he surges to meet him. One hand moving to find Geoffrey's hip, the other at his neck, he groans deep in his throat and opens his mouth for Geoffrey.</p><p>And Reid is—</p><p>Everything that Geoffrey imagined, if he's finally going to let himself admit he's imagined it. His scent is oil and antiseptic and, beneath that, blood; his body is thick with muscle; his touch, when he slides a hand to the back of Geoffrey's skull, has all a vampire's terrifying strength behind it. Every tooth Geoffrey's tongue traces the edge of, he imagines cutting himself open on—would Reid be able to control himself with Geoffrey's blood dripping hot and metallic into his mouth? Would he hold himself back? Or—?</p><p>He won't do it. He isn't stupid. But just the thought makes him press himself closer against Reid's body, makes him grind against him until Reid growls into his mouth and mirrors the movement.</p><p>They both know where this is going, Geoffrey thinks. He forces Reid to step backwards until his back hits the wall with Geoffrey shamelessly rutting against him. Reid, in turn, lets one calloused hand drop to the front of Geoffrey's trousers and—as casually as Geoffrey's ever seen him—slides it beneath the layers of fabric there to take Geoffrey's stiff prick in hand.</p><p>"Fuck," Geoffrey breathes into the gap between their mouths, "ah, fuck, Reid."</p><p>And then he presses a hand against the wall at Reid's back, rests his weight just wrong, and—</p><p>"Fuck!" he snarls, for an entirely different reason this time. He'd almost let himself forget that hand was injured; the shock of pain that sparks up his wrist now, making itself <i>very</i> known, is doing a good job of curing him of that forgetfulness. Geoffrey winces, all but falling against Reid's shoulder as he curls his hand in tight against his body.</p><p>The predatory gleam drops out of Reid's eyes in a heartbeat. He looks almost comically horrified, suddenly, trying to fish his hand out of Geoffrey's trousers without tearing them even as he twists to see Geoffrey's wrist more clearly. "Hold on, let me look at the injury..."</p><p>Geoffrey sucks in a deep breath. The pain was a bolt of lightning. Already it's fading, replaced by nothing more than a dull throb. He shakes his wrist a moment, grimacing, and then says, "Reid?"</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"If you stop now," he growls, "I will <i>kill you myself</i>."</p><p>Reid stops, blinks. For a moment he looks like might laugh. As if this sort of thing were a laughing matter. Geoffrey's never been more serious about anything in his life.</p><p>"I mean it. I have crossbow bolts enough."</p><p>"I don't doubt it," Reid sighs, sounding fonder about a murder threat than he probably should. Not that Geoffrey has room to judge, considering. "All right. Just... be a little gentler to yourself, if you would? I don't want to end up needing to prescribe even stricter restrictions while you heal. Your behavior as a patient is already atrocious enough."</p><p>Geoffrey doesn't bother to protest that. Considering how many times Reid's scolded him for pulling stitches, he can hardly say it isn't fair. But he does press against Reid once more and say, "Just so long as your definition of <i>gentle</i> doesn't get too boring."</p><p>"I don't think you'll be bored," Reid tells him, his voice full of promise. Geoffrey grins at him.</p><p>They can't stop now. If they do, he might snap out of this long enough to gather his wits and realize how terrible an idea this is. And for once, he doesn't want to be sensible. He'll take the regret when it comes, just so long as it comes tomorrow.</p><p>Reid seems to understand just what he's thinking, because without any more hesitation he grabs Geoffrey's hips and spins them both so that Geoffrey's back ends up pressed against the wall. His hand rests against Geoffrey's clothed arousal once more, popping the button on his trousers open without looking down, and this time when Reid grips him Geoffrey is careful to keep his injured hand steady enough that he doesn't interrupt the proceedings again. It's his off hand that he presses to Reid's cock, less practiced but more than deft enough to grind back against Reid in turn. </p><p>His hand is as cold as the rest of him, leechlike, with claws that Geoffrey can feel the needle-sharp edges of when Reid takes hold of Geoffrey's cock. And lower down—well, if Geoffrey hadn't already realized Reid's interest, he'd be realizing it now. Geoffrey growls into the space between them at the feel of Reid's arousal, urging Reid closer. He wants to rut against him like a beast, hands and bodies and mouths, to forget anything else but what's between them in the moment. </p><p>Reid understands, because he surges back against him with a burst of frenzy and a noise to match Geoffrey's. His lips find his, in a kiss that's so sharp it only comes just short of breaking skin, and he presses himself to Geoffrey so that there's no hint of distance left between them. He slides his hand away from Geoffrey's cock only so that he can grind against him instead, setting a pace far filthier and far more intimate than anything Geoffrey's had before. </p><p>Geoffrey kisses him until he has to break for air, flush with desire, and gasps encouragement into Reid's ear until he's caught his breath enough that he can kiss him again. Their bodies slide roughly together—half-dressed, first cloth against cloth and then skin against skin when Geoffrey gets tired of that final barrier and slides Reid's trousers and pants down enough to free his cock in turn. </p><p>He grasps Reid's cock with his uninjured hand, slides it against his own and works his hand over the both of them until even Reid, unbreathing bastard that he is, is making noises enough that he can't keep his mouth pressed to Geoffrey's. Instead he leans his head on Geoffrey's shoulder, rolling his hips to match Geoffrey's strokes while clutching desperately at Geoffrey's body, and it isn't long at all before he tenses against Geoffrey and—with a quiet gasp, a noise far softer than the ones he'd been making before—comes across Geoffrey's hand.</p><p>Geoffrey looks down. He can't help himself. He's half-expecting Reid's seed to be blood red. But he resembles any human man, in that aspect if nothing else, and it isn't until he looks back up that he realizes Reid has gone strangely tense across from him.</p><p>For a moment Geoffrey's half-afraid he's gone to sleep. It would be just like a fucking leech to be so selfish. But Reid's still watching him, intensely as ever, the tinge of red in his eyes all the more obvious now that his face is this close to Geoffrey's. His expression is unreadable, and Geoffrey's too frustrated and desperate to even begin to try and figure out what the hell it's supposed to mean.</p><p>He growls at Reid instead. "Are you planning to just laze around now that you're had your fill, or—?"</p><p>For emphasis, he runs a thumb over the heads of both their pricks, Reid's softening and Geoffrey's still stiff.</p><p>"Ah," Reid says, flushing as much as he's able. "No, my apologies, I only—"</p><p>It's the most goddamn formal <i>sorry</i> Geoffrey's ever gotten out of a man who's cock he's got ahold of. But Reid at least makes good on the apology, so Geoffrey's not about to mock him too much for it. </p><p>With a careful touch, belied by a leech's strength, he replaces Geoffrey's hand with his own at the same time as he slides a thigh in between Geoffrey's legs. It makes for a mix of sensation: Reid's clothed thigh rough between his own, Reid's hand careful against his cock. </p><p>Geoffrey's already close. The tension's there, low in his belly. He lets his head fall back, barely heeding what parts of his neck the gesture exposes, and lets Reid's hands bring him closer and closer. Reid's head drops once more into the space between Geoffrey's neck and shoulder as he touches him—close enough to bite, to taste, but his fangs stay firmly in his mouth. </p><p>(It still leaves Geoffrey imagining, though. This won't happen again, obviously. It can't. It <i>won't</i>. But if by some sudden burst of renewed insanity it ever did...)</p><p>It doesn't take long, with that—with the fangs; and the claws; and the cool, inhuman touch; and the sounds of a man Geoffrey knows far more intimately than any other, breathing heavy in a voice thick with desire. All too soon, Geoffrey thrusts into Reid's touch and feels the peak he was trying to balance himself against crumble under him. </p><p>He comes with a muffled noise, clutching at Reid's shoulder with his good hand as he does. For a moment it's pure pleasure, uncomplicated, outweighing everything else: just Reid's hand on him and Reid's body pressed against and Reid's voice a murmur in his ear. </p><p>In the next moment, reality begins to reassert itself. Here is the leader of the guard of Priwen, pressed against a leech in the monster's own den, his body sticky with both their seed. Brought here not by some fearsome creature's <i>mesmer</i>, but of his own free ill and his own miserably poor choices.</p><p>He should break away from Reid. Shout threats or vicious insults. From the way Reid is quiet against him—neither pulling away or leaning in closer, frozen as still as the corpses his body resembles—he has a feeling he's expecting it.</p><p><i>Fuck</i>, Geoffrey thinks tiredly, and then with his good arm he reels Reid in closer to lean against him where they both stand. </p><p>He doesn't want to be angry right now. He doesn't want this to end. <i>Not yet</i>, he thinks, <i>not yet</i>, sick with shame over all the shame he can't bring himself to feel.</p><p>It takes a little time, but finally Reid seems to realize the rebuke isn't coming. He relaxes against Reid, sliding their bodies together and letting his forehead rest against the wall next to Geoffrey's head. He's so close Geoffrey can hear his infrequent, shallow breathing—not the noises of a creature who needs air, but one occasionally remembers to grab a breath in case he needs to make use of it to speak. Strange, how a man can be so human and inhuman at once.</p><p>"Reid," Geoffrey murmurs, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. "A question."</p><p>Reid's response is a quiet, wordless huff, somehow managing to convey <i>What is it?</i> and <i>Now, really?</i> all at once.</p><p>Geoffrey soldiers on. "What is it you were thinking about, a minute ago?"</p><p>It takes a second for Reid to remember the moment Geoffrey's thinking of—right after he spent himself in Geoffrey's arms, when he was staring at him dead on and barely seeing him at all. Geoffrey can tell the exact second Reid does remember, because he tenses where he's slumped against Geoffrey. </p><p>"Ah," he says. And then, voice lowering into something that might sound threatening if this were any other leech than Reid in any other situation than post-coitally wrapped around Geoffrey, "I was thinking of how you might taste."</p><p>Geoffrey snorts, feeling wrung out and sated, not even bothering to shove Reid away. "Liar." </p><p>"And how do you figure that?"</p><p>"You're a leech. It's in your nature. Anything that comes out of your mouth is a lie."</p><p>He can feel Reid's smile against his neck. His beard tickles at the skin there when he moves. "Then why bother asking me in the first place? If you can't trust any answer I give, surely the question's no help."</p><p>That, Geoffrey doesn't bother to dignify with a response. </p><p>Not as if he really needs Reid's answer, anyway. The more he thinks about it, staring out into Reid's dimly-lit office, smelling sweat and sex and the faint aftermath of shaving lather, the more he starts to think he might have his answer without needing to ask.</p><p>He must be wrong, is the only problem, because the answer he's come up with is absurd. But when he thinks back to the expression on Reid's face in that moment—the concentration there, the oddly fond sort of look in his eyes—he can't help but think that reading between the lines there isn't so difficult after all.</p><p>Not that it matters whether he's right. Even if his absurd idea somehow turned out to be correct, if Reid's interest in him <i>does</i> go beyond mere blood-hunger and perverse desire, it makes no difference at all. Spending a single night with a leech is dangerous enough. <i>Disgusting</i> enough. Tomorrow morning he'll come to his senses; the shame will set in the way it should have long ago. He won't make a mistake like this again.</p><p>And if Geoffrey tells himself that enough—here with his body pressed to Reid's, a warmth in chest he refuses to name—then maybe he can force himself to believe it.</p>
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